ncent informed me that you had staid at home to nurse a
cold. This morning I call to enquire for the interesting invalid, and
find she is out in the cool February air."

"It is very mild, and it is at night the air is dangerous," returned
Katherine, smiling.

"Now I look at you, I don't think you look so blooming as usual. May I
go back with you and pay my visit of condolence, in spite of having left
my card?"

"Yes," said Katherine, with sudden decision. "I want to speak to you."

"Indeed!"--with a keen, eager look. "This is something new. May I ask--"

"No; not until we are in Miss Payne's drawing-room."

"You alarm me. Could it be possible that you, peerless as you are, have
got into a scrape?"

"Well, I think I can say I have," said Katherine, smiling.

"Great heavens! this is delightful."

"Let us talk of something else."

"By all means. Will you hear some gossip? I don't often retail any, but
I fancy you'll be amused and interested to know that Lady Alice Mordaunt
is really going to marry that brewer fellow. You remember I told you
what I thought was going on last autumn."

"Is it possible?" cried Katherine. "Imagine her so soon forgetting Mr.
Errington!"

"And why should not that immaculate individual be exempt from the usual
fate of man?"

"I don't know--except that he is not an ordinary man."

"No; certainly not. He is an extraordinary fellow; but I must say he has
shown great staying power in his late difficulties. They tell me he has
been revenging himself by writing awful problems, political and
critical, which require a forty-horse intellectual power to understand."
And De Burgh talked on, seeing that his companion was disinclined to
speak until they reached Miss Payne's house.

Katherine took off her hat and warm cloak with some deliberation,
thinking how best to approach her subject. Pushing back her hair, which
had become somewhat disordered from its own weight, she sat down on an
ottoman, and raising her eyes to De Burgh, who stood on the hearth-rug,
said, slowly, "I have a secret to tell you which you must keep for a few
weeks."

"For an eternity, if you will trust me," he returned, in low, earnest
tones, his dark eyes fixed upon her, as if trying to read her heart.

"Well, then, my uncle's son and heir, whom we believed to be dead, has
suddenly reappeared, and of course takes the fortune I have been, let us
_say_, enjoying."

De Burgh did not reply at once; his eyes continued to